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I kneel and examine the plump chestnuts individually, giving each a quick shake to make sure the meaty center is present before placing it in the bag. I look up at Conor. “Gold!”

“I thought you were kidding.” Conor folds his arms, stands back, and watches.

“Never leave a chestnut on the ground if you can help it,” I tell him. “It’s called survival. Grandma Cap’s law.”

Once the bag is full, I follow Conor back to his car.

“I think you’re going to make it just fine in Italy,” he says as we pull back onto the road, leaving the moody woods behind. My first connection in Italy to the life I left behind is humble chestnuts. Grandma Cap would roast or boil them to pound into a dough to make gnocchi. I like to think the chestnuts are a sign that my grandmothers are with me in Italy.

We drive into a clearing, following a narrow road lit by the low orange sun. The Tuscan countryside rolls out before us in waves of soft gold. We pass an ancient walking path seared into the earth like a stamp on marble. I wonder where it goes, as its veins disappear high into the forest. I take it as a challenge. The answers are not going to come to me; I will have toclimb.

Conor swerves onto a wide road that unspools in a straight line, the last lap toward our destination. I know we are close because I see the white summit for the first time. “Is that marble?”

“Did you think it was snow? First time I saw it, I thought it was.” Conor slows down and points to the horizon that hems the sky. “They’re quarries.” The white peaks shimmer as though they are drizzled in diamond dust. I lean out the window to take in the peacock-blue hills that cascade from the mountaintop to the autostrada.

“How could anyone ever leave this place?”

“Did you ever ask your grandparents?”

“They were hungry,” I tell him.

“The sooner you find what fills you up, the better. The day I landed in Italy, I knew this was it for me. When my dad died, I came here temporarily to run the operation. I thought about sellingthe business, but then I fell in love. First with the country, and then with my partner.”

“And if she won’t go, you won’t either.”

“He.” Conor smiles.

“Sei bello da impazzire.”

Conor laughs. “You’ll have no problem meeting great guys over here. People say this is the land of the Ferrari, and it is, but the Italians’ greatest invention is not the race car. Are you looking?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never looked for love. I married a man who I met when we were kids in kindergarten. He was part of the fabric of my life, like the family I was born into; I didn’t question it.”

“There’s your trouble. You’ve got to question everything.”

“It’s not how I was raised. I was taught to obey and serve. I thought if I made other people happy, that would make me happy. I’m in therapy to sort it all out. Online.”

“Is the therapy working?”

“I got on the plane, didn’t I?” I say cheerfully.

“Louie Cap believed in you. He assured me that you could run the business without him.”

“Did he? Did Uncle Louie also tell you that he was running a second operation where he resold marble he didn’t use on jobs, banking the profits in the Cayman Islands?”

“Louie was not enthusiastic about paying a lot of taxes,” Conor admits. “But who is?”

“Hepaid; he just didn’t pay double. This is according to the FBI. They believe his operation, called the Elegant Gangster, owes the government back taxes.”

“How much money are we talking about?” Conor asks.

“Enough that it’s worth the investigation to find out.”

I have plenty to leave behind, not just my marriage, but mattersat work. Typically, I’d be anxious at the thought of all that lies ahead with the FBI, but I find that I’m not. Instead, I have a sense of peace as we drive toward Carrara. Uncle Louie often spoke of the serenity of Italy, how it soothed him and shored up his soul. If I experience either of those on my journey, I just might figure out what makes me happy.

Conor turns off the autostrada. The village of Carrara is tucked into the blue-green velvet folds of the Apuan Alps like a rare sapphire. It is just as my grandmother described it, but even her stories cannot compare to the thrill of seeing her hometown for the first time.

Sensing my wonder, Conor slows down and turns onto a narrow side street dappled with glistening cobblestones still wet from rain. I jump out of the car and run to the piazza. The sun is setting; the last of the light illuminates the amber, mustard, and coral painted stucco facades of the buildings. The vivid colors are framed in a glossy black trim like works of art.